There's No Place Like Home
by netgirly2k
Summary: Gwen and Rhys run a slightly shambling Torchwood out of their spare room. Post Children of Earth.


Rhys heard a key turn in the front door and wiped the last bit of baby food from around his son's mouth. "That'll be Mummy home."

It was indeed Gwen. She left the front door open and went to the high chair and picked up the baby. "Hello, little man."

Rhys went to close the front door, only to find his way barred by Lois and Johnson, who between them were supporting a slimy and semi-conscious alien. Lois looked apologetic, and Johnson looked the same as she always did: irritated and slightly scary.

"Oh, for chrissake!" Rhys exclaimed. "At least take it round the side of the house. It's a total nightmare getting alien goo out of the carpet."

Once Lois and Johnson had departed for the Torchwood Secure Containment Facility, Rhys sent an irked look at his wife.

"What?" she said, bouncing the baby on her knee. "It's totally harmless."

Rhys sighed. "Tea and cheese on toast for four, then?"

"Thanks, love. I'll put David to bed."

*

Lois and Johnson were locking the alien in the Torchwood Secure Containment Facility, also known as the shed at the bottom of Gwen and Rhys's back garden.

"I used to have warehouses full of technology and weapons, and my own private army," Johnson complained wistfully.

"I used to get through entire days without getting covered in alien slime," Lois replied.

*

Lois had been recruited first. She'd been wondering what to do next now that she was out of a job. It turned out that helping to bring down the government was the sort of thing that got you blacklisted from the civil service for life.

Then there had been a knock at her door and there had been Gwen Cooper, looking about nineteen months pregnant. Lois had always liked Gwen. She was the one who'd remembered to get her out of that police cell.

"Hello, are you still looking for a job?"

"I thought Torchwood was..." Lois trailed off with a vague gesture that was intended to convey the words An Enormous Hole In The Ground.

"I'm rebuilding it and I'd really like your help."

"Need a PA, do you?"

"Actually, yes. Needs a lot of organisation, this rebuilding a high-tech alien fighting organisation from scratch business."

"Oh, okay, I'm in."

"Great. I don't suppose you know how to fire a gun?"

*

The spare room at the back of Gwen's house was full of computers wired into the Torchwood archive and monitoring the rift. Until recently, there had been crates of alien artefacts rescued from the wreckage of the hub piled against one wall, but Gwen and Rhys had banished them up to the attic once David started crawling.

Gwen, Rhys, Lois and Johnson were sitting in the spare room eating cheese and toast off plates on their laps.

"How long is our guest in the shed going to be staying?" Rhys asked.

"Just till the morning," Gwen answered. "We'll let him sleep it off and shove him back through the rift once he's sober."

"Let me see if I've got this right, you're using our garden shed as an alien drunk tank?"

"Just for tonight. Johnson, would you make sure he gets back to his ship and actually leaves?"

"Sure, because this is why I joined Torchwood."

*

Johnson had joined Torchwood for the opportunity to save country and planet from alien invaders, and also because Gwen had promised her access to extremely advanced alien weaponry.

Rhys hadn't been sure about recruiting her. "Are you sure it's a good idea?" he'd asked one night as he and Gwen were curled up in bed.

"Well, I wouldn't be in a hurry to leave the baby with her, but I think she'll be good for Torchwood."

"Any idea what her first name is?"

"No, I think it might actually be Johnson," Gwen replied, sleepily.

"I think her first name is Secret Agent."

"Secret Agent Johnson, that's what I'm going to call her from now on."

"I'm not, I'm scared she'd hurt me."

Gwen and Rhys both closed their eyes to go to sleep, at which point David started crying.

"Your turn to get up."

"Yours."

*

After a cup of coffee and a bacon roll (courtesy of Rhys) and some strong words about Torchwood's views on people drunkenly crashing their spaceships into Cardiff (that was Gwen), the alien was shoved back into his ship at gunpoint (Johnson) and departed through the rift.

*

In the Torchwood hub (spare room), Gwen was looking over quotes from builders. It turned out that the construction of a giant underground superbase was not the sort of thing that came cheap.

Johnson had brought a case labelled miscellaneous weaponry down from the attic, and was trying to figure out what still worked and what it did; when in doubt, she went into the back garden and took aim at a tree. This annoyed Rhys because he had ideas of building David a tree-house when he was older, but at least it was better than her testing mysterious alien guns inside the house.

Lois was looking over the details of disaffected NHS doctors, provided by Martha Jones, looking for someone who'd consider working out of Gwen's spare room a step up the career ladder.

*

Gwen kept a list of priorities, things that really had to be sorted out as soon as she found time to breathe, for the newly reformed Torchwood.

Base.  
Transport.  
Doctor.  
Tech expert.  
Dinosaur?

The dinosaur thing was only a maybe, just if one happened to fall through the rift. It was tradition, after all.

*

The official Torchwood police liaison popped in for a cup of tea, where Andy broke it to Gwen that the old Torchwood SUV had been found burned out on an estate. Gwen and Johnson took a look but nothing could be salvaged, not even the Christmas tree lights.

The next morning, Johnson arrived in a jeep she'd commandeered from the British army. "I didn't know you could commandeer army equipment," said Gwen.

"Commandeer..steal..."

"So, if I got Lois to draw you up a list..."

"No problem."

*

The need to find a new headquarters became more urgent when an invading Sontaran was defeated when he tripped over one of David's stuffed animals, which had been left on the hall landing.

"You don't want another underground base," Johnson told Gwen.

"Why not?"

"For one thing, it's really difficult to escape in time if someone plants a bomb down there," Johnson replied, utterly without shame.

Gwen was about to snap back when Lois interrupted, "Actually, I've been making a list of other possible locations, we could go and have a look?"

*

Torchwood Five ended up being located in a warehouse with, as Johnson pointed out, enough emergency exits to enable a quick getaway should anyone try to blow them up. Once they'd moved in the rift monitor, all their computer equipment, the jeep, the spare jeep, and all of Johnson's weapons, then constructed a couple of holding cells, there was just enough room to put down Jack's food bowl.

Jack was what Gwen had named the wannanosaurus that had wandered through the rift last week. It would be good for David to have a pet, she'd told Rhys as her justification for keeping it.

Lois's mobile rang. She answered it and spoke for a moment. "That was Bridget," she said. "There's a ship in orbit that's threatening to blow holes in British cities. The government are asking for our help."

"Right," Gwen began. "Lois, start the jeep, Johnson, grab your gun. Oh, and someone remember to shut the door so Jack can't get out after us."


End file.
